First Ever "real" RR - not so good
i have done3 IMs to date and always felt i could "turn on" the even, steady riding and backed of EN style of riding for my races without much practice. Now that i am graduating to much hillier courses, i have decided these are a must do.
Yesterday i went out and did a RR a week early because i am doing a big Tri week this week in NH with some other ENers and I know doing this at the end of the week wasn't going to work. So, the one glaring issue is that i did a 13 mile hard run on Thursday and my legs were probably a little tired from that.
out of the box kept watts at .67ish range of where they should be. "thought" i was doing a good job, of course, my 15ish minute intervals, came out with VI between 1.04 and 1.09, with a couple of outliers, a few in the 1.01 - 1.03 and one at 1.12...
started this ride around 6:40 am, temps in the 70s. by half way through temps were in he 80s heading for mid 90s. I was feeling a bit tired and for lack of a better term, delirious, quickly sucked down the remainder of my fluids on bike, about a bottle and a half, stopped at the next convienence store and got an energy bar and lots more water, and got on plan. last third of the ride felt simply horrid. didnt feel like generating power at the right #s on flats was good. did my best to keep power down on hills....
finished up 104 miles in 6:43 with 6600 ft of climbing. got back and was shredded, temps in the mid 90s, colected myself for about 45 minutes and put out a 5 mile run... pace wasnt working on the run on my garmin for some reason which was just fine. I ran hills, had water with me and walked 30-60 secs every mile. Kept heat pacing in mind and worked it through...
so my thoughts of course now are, how am i ever going to get through Ironman Mont Tremblant? I know that my time expectations have to be adjusted for the hills on that course vs my previous events (AZ x2 and Louisville). I know enough that performance increases are measured by percentile of finish in AG & overall (closely aligned) and that you won't know this until after everyone finishes, but that is the true measure of how much did i improve.
so, what does this all mean for my IMMT preperation. how do i focus on even riding more? I am doing that on my APB rides more... I have my next RR scheduled for the Friday or Saturday of IMLP on the LP course which should be very helpful as well for prep.
a couple of technical questions:
i tracked this ride on both my garmin 910xt & my joule. The garmin came up with a VI of 1.1 and 16,000 feet of climbing! Clearly both numbers were wrong. the joule just ran an update the night before and wasnt recording mileage, but was recording speed & power metrics.... any thoughts on these two technical issues?
Comments
My first thought on reading this- you do NOT have your nutrition dialed in. You waited until you were delirious to "suck down the remainder of my fluids". It does not seem that you have a detailed nutrition plan- whether it's Infinit, Perform, Skratch Lab, Gatorade, whatever. Water separate? Solid food? How much to take a specific time intervals, etc.
And it takes practice- a lot- to ride steady. 2011 I was on my road bike more than my tri bike. When I went tri specific- I could not "turn on" steady riding. I had to practice, practice, practice. It's not as easy as you think. This year I am all tri bike and it still takes focus. I actually ride steadier when I ride hard. So for these RR it is a lot of focus.
I can speak to the Joule and 910 issues, I am a tech weanie.
You can not control how others race. You can only do your best. If you are worried about your final standing at the end of IMMT, then you are already outside your box. I hope that your next RR will be as you hope. RR #1 is specifically to find the problems and fix them for RR#2.
Best of luck.
nutrition plan was totally not dialed in like it would be in a race. I know what i would do in a race and it wasn't what i did yesterday, so that is a good start. I also agree on the smooth riding, much easier at higher watts...
so... joule & 910 issues??
Joule - after update to version 14.072, it did not record most distance, it seemed to do so intermittently, no rhyme or reason to it.
910xt, was upgraded to last firmware this week. V1 way off compared to joule, we both know i didnt do that ride at 1.1!
nutrition plan was totally not dialed in like it would be in a race. I know what i would do in a race and it wasn't what i did yesterday, so that is a good start. I also agree on the smooth riding, much easier at higher watts...
so... joule & 910 issues??
Joule - after update to version 14.072, it did not record most distance, it seemed to do so intermittently, no rhyme or reason to it.
910xt, was upgraded to last firmware this week. V1 way off compared to joule, we both know i didnt do that ride at 1.1!
Yup. What Michele said about nutrition plan. Maybe more than the long run, what did you eat the day before? And did you start hydrated? In crazy heat wave especially, I'm finding what I ate for dinner/breakfast/and how hydrated I start out rides definitely makes a difference.
Scott...I know this won't be that insightful...but hey...everybody has a tough day/workout....and it has been hot...last year when training for Louisville- my first full- I had a horrendous RR in similarly hot conditions...and was thinking to myself ...yikes...how am I gonna handle this...Louisville could be this warm etc....(in fact I had the same tough 100miler this weekend in the heat...the only thing that keeps me sane is I have had 2 75-80milers this past month in better conditions which were very strong...but today I simply couldn't hold it together...it happens...I know I am stronger than the result)
So the workout is what it is....It sounds as though you rode it confidently and with pretty good VI (given you did intervals v. steady ride)....
I would take the advice on the nutrition...maybe even get some more input (hydration etc.)....and see how RR#2 goes.....you know how to ride hills...it will come together...(shoot thats alot of climbing is MT that hilly? thats worse than LP...more like St. George?)...
Oh yeah re: hydration...I drank 4 bottles of water + 2 of Perpetuem/water and still lost like 6 lbs. on the ride....first real long ride under these conditions means we're not acclimated yet......real impact here.
@ joe, yes MT is THAT hilly, supposed to be worse than placid. More climbing, but more spread out, so often climbing and sometimes very steep, not one big concentration like the last 17 miles of the LP loop...
If so, it kinda guesses which is why I have just bought a stand alone cadence sensor (the PT thought I was doing over 120 rpm often, which is highly unlikely). The new sensor reads in the ball-park of where I expect it to be.
Scott,
As you are doing a big tri week I don't think you need to focus on riding more. Also remember that you are not recovered going in to the RR and sometimes the body just does not respond.
Now you mention .67 IF. Is you FTP dialied in or is this from a test long ago? I just ask the question but as others have mentioned the nutrition and heat seem to be the main contributing factors. Also you mention water, but in that kind of heat what about salt tabs and additioanal electorlytes.
Put in the big tri week, focus on nurturion and recovery and I'm sure the 2nd RR will come out better.
As for the VI of the ride, when you are getting tired or don't have proper gearing this can spike the watts causing >1.1. If it's a gearing issues get this fixed now otherwise just focus on the shifting and riding smooth in to the next RR.
Gordon
The PT internal hub cadence "sensor" is based on the variation in power throughout the pedal stroke, with a peak generally once each revolution for each foot. In the range up to about 95 rpm, I have found it to be very accurate. Over that, for me at least, it tends to report a higher cadence than I am actually doing. There may be individual variations on this depending on the "smoothness" of one's pedal stroke.
@all - so here is the question, will a garmin device (like my 910xt) pick up cadence & speed off the PT? or will it only pull cadence and calculate speed by the GPS?